The Story of My Life
by OhMyMaple71
Summary: Human AU: Kiku decides to clean out a closet, and finds items that bring back a few memories from time before. Of times with friends, and simple moments spent with his best friend, roommate, and girlfriend, Lien.


The reason why he'd decided to clean that closet out was lost to Kiku, although he really didn't mind. What with Lien out and about at the moment, and nothing much left to do it made sense, right? Anyway, they'd been putting off going through this closet for ages. Among the many old shoes with no pair, broken cleaning items, and in general miscellaneous items, he'd managed to dig out a box without anything written on it. It was old, but seemed to have held up well. Not sure if it were just another box of random items, or if perhaps it were one of items of Liens' or his own, left there and forgotten while other things were moved into the apartment, he set it to the side. It could wait for a little.

It was an hour or so after discovering the box that the Japanese man came to the back of the closet, and with anything else found in there thrown out, sorted and put away,or put into a pile to look through again once Lien came home, he decided that the box was worth looking through at the moment. Leaning back a moment, he stretched out and gave a light yawn, quickly checking the time via alarm clock on the nightstand. Huh, he'd have to get dinner started soon. Hopefully Lien would return from her visiting before it was finished. Sitting upright again, Kiku pulled the box over so it sat infront of him, and pulled the flaps open. The first thing that greeted him was the cover of a few textbooks, more then likely leftover from one of their senior years at highschool. He didn't look too closely at the language it was in, knowing that it'd be in one of two, and pulled them out to set on the side.

The next thing that showed itself was a small advertisement, put in a protective sheet. Feeling himself smile as he picked it up, Kiku knew he remembered this, as it was typed in stiff and slightly damaged English. Back at the time, he'd been in second year of collage, and as living in a dorm was getting to be quite pricey, it was an attempt to find a roommate to split the cost off an off-campus apartment with. He still remembered the fact that Lien had been the only person to actually approach him in person while he was putting them up. Asked him what he was doing, and upon his explanation had nodded and casually taken one of papers he'd been holding before heading on her way. Out of the few people he'd had contact him on it, Kiku remembered that Lien had been the one that had gotten along with him best, resulting in them becoming fast friends.

Setting it aside carefully with a small chuckle, he went on to the next items in the box, which seemed to be two small flags, set on small flagpoles. They were the kind you'd find in a garden plant, and Kiku really couldn't remember where they'd been bought, but he did remember the reason. The summer Olympics, the first summer that they'd been rooming.

When the term had ended, and they were all free for a while, it was a common thing for the small group of friends that the two Asians were in to gather and cheer on their homeland. Amusing, really, how they all seemed to be of a different nationality, but none of that really mattered. All of them had had flags like these, and crackers and just in general celebratory items, as they'd gather in the dorm room, or the living room of whichever one of them was hosting at the time and cheer. Of course, as all of them were students, they'd be stupid. They'd be silly. Kiku distinctly remembered Feliciano, one of the Italian twins that he'd befriended holding a string of spaghetti above his brothers top lip, joking that Lovino had a mustache. Or when Germany had gotten a gold medal, and Gilbert had decided that popping a party popper right above his younger brother, Ludwig's head was a good idea, resulting in both a mess and a small playful tussle between the two. One thing he remembered the clearest though, was when Vietnam had just barely gotten their first medal against almost all odds, and Lien had jumped onto him in piggyback style. Of course, they both had ended up laughing, and he'd happily let his friend, knowing that she was celebrating her home achieving something.

Smiling still as he set the flags aside as well, Kiku wondered what his friends were doing now, and resolved to find a day where none of them were busy. They could all have another day like they used to, laughing and joking and being themselves, without a single care what anyone thought of them because they were with friends. That would be nice. Shifting a little bit in his seated position, he looked down to what appeared to be the last items in the box. On the bottom, there seemed to be a book of some kind, and atop it were two flowers. They were old and pressed, and Kiku handled them gingerly when he pulled them out of the box. Bringing them up to his face, it took him a moment to realize what type they were. A lotus and a chrysanthemum.

Honestly not having any clue why they were there for a moment, Kiku found himself giving a quiet sound of laughter when he remembered. He couldn't remember the man's name right now for the life of him, but he knew that he had been from the Netherlands, and used to live next door to them. Lien and himself had been going out somewhere, when he'd stopped them and handed them to them, telling them that they were flowers that went along with their name, or their temperament or something along those lines. When asked why, the Dutch man had simply told them it was a holiday back where he was from, and gone on his merry way. They'd tucked them away at that moment, and talked about them for a while afterward, as they went about their errands.

Smiling at the lotus, he remembered another occasion that the little flower had come into play. That was a memory for another time, though, as he was curious about the book of sorts, seeing as it had no markings to read what it was. And he still had to get dinner going too. Deciding that the little flowers shouldn't sit where the other items from this odd box had, Kiku stood and instead set them on one of the nightstands in the room, by the lamp. Returning to his spot, Kiku folded his legs under him so he was seated on his knees again, and pulled the book out, flipping it over to examine the other side as well, not finding any indication of what it was there either. Setting it on his lap, he pulled the cover open gently, giving a smile and a light sound upon discovering that it was, in fact, a photo album.

One of the first things seen appeared to be a awkwardly taken shot of the two of them, both a little more then off centered, but at least a good half of each of their faces had made it in. It was amusing, really, and from his knowledge of photography now, he could be sure it was from around the first day they'd decided to room as friends. That was made official upon pulling the photo out of the protective plastic page, and seeing hastily written characters on the back in his home language. Why in the world the two had decided that taking a photo of that would be a good idea, Kiku had no idea whatsoever.

What he did have an idea of though, was that the two of them seemed pretty cheerful about it, from what he could see of their faces, and really he supposed that they'd had full right to at the time. After all, they'd managed to dodge a few dollars worth more of loans by finding somewhere off campus to live, and in the process had managed to make a new friend of sorts. Or, at least someone they could tolerate more then most other people. That was about the same thing, though, when he thought about it.

Setting the photo back into it's place in the album after another moment's observation, he began to flip through the rest, stopping at some of them and smiling, memories coming back vividly from them. Some of them was just a photo of Lien or himself, doing whatever they were doing and not having noticed the other snapping the photo. Some were funny moments that a camera happened to be on hand for, silly things like during a game of truth or dare when the lot of them had given one another blind makeovers, thanks to a good bit of alcohol allowing them to let it happen. Or photos of Lien just ever so casually sitting upside down and twisted around, as she tended to do for one reason or another when very immersed in something she was watching. There were a few that didn't feature either of them, and instead the small white dog Kiku called Pochi, or friends of theirs during an out and about moment.

The Asian came across an entire three or four pages, simply devoted to what were photos from a summer roadtrip taken a few years back, and usually featured something silly going on in the small caravan the group of friends were in, or an extreme closeup of someone making a stupid face, probably taken with plenty of giggling going on. There were a few of birthdays, or casual celebrations.

One page he came across was of the lunar new year, where Lien had taught him a few Vietnamese customs and he had, in turn, taught her a few from Japan. Those ones Kiku looked at very closely, for there was quite a nice memory nestled in the time of them. One he would remember vividly even if it weren't for the photos to show them messing about with paper lanterns, or Lien deciding that he should try a new rice bowel hat, or even when they'd been attempting to use the paint brush and ink set on the table for signs to bring in good luck, but had really only managed to doodle on one another's faces.

The particular memory he had was at the small-ish New Year's gathering that year from the photo's, and unlike the usual cheering and celebrating that would go on when it officially became the new year, it seemed Lien and himself had different plans then the usual hug they'd share. Instead they'd seemed to have forgone their usually slightly withdrawn personalities and had kissed. Nothing big, to most people, and it wasn't anything spectacular either, but it had drawn out 'oooo's from a few friends, and extremely red faces from the two in question. That was, in fact, the time they questioned if they both were being incredibly stupid and thinking of their already close friendship as something more then it was, or if they were being insanely honest and actually did feel something more then that.

Luckily, they'd gone to the latter, and had been right with that idea for a good two years now.

On the next few pages, it seemed to be a smattering of random photos he'd probably taken for some of his classes, photos the two of them had deemed needed at the time that consisted of either the two of them being stupid and/or dorky, and even just a few more ones that had one unawares of it.

Oddly, it seemed that somehow some extremely old ones had managed to sneak in there too, dating back to a few moments in each of their childhoods. Some that seemed to hold old, old friends long out of touch with, siblings; he could see one where he was piggybacking a sleeping little sister home from what seemed to be the field that had been by where he grew up, Kaoru of only a year younger then Mei trailing behind. Absently running a finger along the characters written on the bottom of that one, Kiku made a note to catch up with those two sometime soon. It'd been years. On the same page as that one was too be seen two young Vietnamese girls, looking similar and yet distinctly foreign at the same time; he did know for a fact that that was Lien and her sister of the same age, whom she never really brought up. From what he had gathered over the years, though, Lien's sister and her had always been close, until about their last year of highschool, where something changed, and neither got along well at all until the sister just up and left. It was never elaborated on, and Kiku wasn't going to push Lien on something that seemed to be such a sensitive subject to her.

Continuing with his flipping through the final pages of the album, pages filled with old photos of growing up for the both of them, he hadn't even noticed the blur in his vision. Not until a hand had set itself to shaking his shoulder gently, and looking up slightly caused him to meet eyes of a similar colour to his that belonged to Lien.

"Kiku?"

It was a quiet question, and almost as if speaking louder than that would break some sort of atmosphere. Kiku blinked once, not having exactly registered the first time. He hadn't even heard the door open it seemed, nor the curious calls of his girlfriend.

"Are you alright?"

Her look was slightly concerned, because it wasn't the most common occasion to see this at all. Wasn't common at all for either of them to actually be sitting there, tears freshly and openly rolling down. It was made all the odder to Lien by how Kiku was smiling. Giving a nod, he shut the cover of the album, bringing a hand up to swipe at his eyes. How hadn't he noticed he was crying?

"Hai. I was just…looking through some old photos. Brought back some memories."

Setting the album to the side along with the other items from the box, he leaned back for a moment, tilting his head to get a view of the clock on the nightstand, before almost jumping up at the sight of the time. Giving a sheepish look to the raised eyebrow of silent question he was being sent, he made a slight sound.

"I forgot to start dinner before now. "

Silence stayed for a moment, before the two started laughing. Why? They had no idea, but it just felt right. Shaking her head slightly, Lien pinched Kiku's cheek jokingly before turning and heading out of the room.

"You'd forget your own head if it weren't screwed on, you know that?"

Kiku simply laughed slightly once again, stepping over some items on the floor to catch up with the Vietnamese women.

"Says the one who forgot her own hair colour once." He teased back, gently nudging her as he did so.

"I was sleep deprived and barely surviving on caffeine, that doesn't count! Anyway, you were the one that forgot entirely about both your glasses and contacts before, Kiku, so you can't talk!"

Gentle teasing like this happened often, and the friendly bickering over it went on for a little, as they started dinner. Like usual, though, the conversation changed into different topics, and all was like it normally would be between the two. It was when a lull in their conversation happened, that Kiku thought back to the photo album, and realized something. Between their own memories and most of those photos, was the stories that told their life, interwoven with so many little aspects. And despite if it were good or bad, Kiku rather liked the way his had turned out, especially the part that he was at now.


End file.
